Recovering the Password for the root Account

Symptom: You have forgotten the password for the root account.

Solution 1:

Reboot your server.

During the reboot, when you see a screen with the word GRUB at the top and a text box with Cisco Unified Communications in it, you only have three seconds to press the space bar once the system displays this screen. Once you pressed the space bar, press p to enter a default password (ask Cisco TAC for the password).

Once you entered the password, press Enter.

The system displays three options. Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the entry that starts with "kernel."

Press e to edit the entry.

At the end of the entry, enter a space and then the following single init=/bin/bash.

Note: You must type a space before you type single.

Press Enter to return the previous screen.

Make sure that the line that starts with "kernel" is selected and press b to continue rebooting the server.

At the prompt, find out the mounting device for / (ext3) by typing mount (you should see the line like this /dev/sda1 on / type ext3)

Once you identified the device (in the above example /dev/dsa1; keep in mind that this can be different on your system), remount the / by typing the following: mount -o remount,rw DEVICE_PATH (for example: mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda1)

At the prompt, enter passwd. This tells the server to set a new password for the user called root.

At the New password: prompt, enter a new password. For security purposes, the password is displayed as a series of asterisks.

Note: You may see a message that the password you entered is bad. Ignore this message.

At the Retype new password: prompt, re-enter the same password again.

Once the password is confirmed, issue a reboot command to reboot the server

When the server reboots, the system displays the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system login page.

At the username prompt, enter root.

At the password prompt, enter the new password that you created in Step 12.

The system displays the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system desktop.

Recovering the Password for the mpxadmin Account

Symptom: You have forgotten the password for the mpxadmin account or you want to change the password for the mpxadmin account.

Solution:

Log in to the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system as the root user.

From the menu, select New Terminal. This brings up a terminal session.

At the prompt, enter /root/.security/unimmunize.sh.

At the prompt, enter passwd mpxadmin. This tells the server to set a new password for the user called mpxadmin.

At the New password prompt, enter a new password. For security purposes, the password is displayed as a series of asterisks.

Note: You may see a message that the password you entered is bad. Ignore this message.

At the Retype new password prompt, re-enter the same password again.

At the prompt, enter /root/.security/immunize.sh.

On the desktop, click the Red Hat icon.

Click Log Out.

Click OK.

Recovering the System Administrator Password Used in the End-User Interface and the Administration Center

Symptom: You have forgotten the password for the system administrator profile that is used in the End-User Interface and the Administration Center.

Solution:

Log in to the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system as the mpxadmin user.

At the password prompt, enter the mpxadmin password.

The system displays the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system desktop.

Right-click on the desktop.

From the menu, select New Terminal. This brings up a terminal session.

At the prompt, enter userutil -p admin <'newpassword'>, where newpassword is the new password. This tells the server to set a new password for the End-User Interface and Administration Center user called admin.

On the desktop, click the Red Hat icon.

Click Log Out.

Click OK.

Cannot Install a License

Symptom: I am trying to install a license and get an error that says "Sorry. Cannot enter the license at this time."

Possible Cause: The hostname that you entered during the product installation contains more than 32 characters.

Solution: Use the net command to change the hostname of the system so that it contains 32 characters or less.

Possible Cause: If an end user's mailbox has more than 1360 appointment items or 32 KB of appointment data, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server can become unstable and end users may not be able to create, save, or delete appointments. End users should keep their mailboxes below the limit.

Swapping Out a Hard-Disk Drive

Symptom: I need to change the hard-disk drive on the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express system.

Solution: Each Cisco MCS server has multiple hard-disk drives so it is possible to continue using the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express system if a hard-disk drive fails. However, there will be no redundancy and if the system goes down, you can lose your operating system, application, and data.

Swapping Out a Hard-Disk Drive on a Cisco MCS 7825

All versions of the Cisco MCS 7825 have front-accessible, simple-swap SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) hard-disk drives. The SATA hard-disk drives are accessible through openings in the front bezel of the server.

Before You Begin

Schedule server downtime.

Procedure

Turn off the server and all peripheral devices.

Disconnect the power cord and all external cables.

Remove the bad hard-disk drive. Each hard-disk drive is equipped with a front latch that positively mates the drive to the server.

Insert the new hard-disk drive. This hard-disk drive must be unconfigured.

Connect the power cord and all external cables.

Turn on the power.

Reinstall the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express operating system and restore the application and your data from a backup.

Swapping Out a Hard-Disk Drive on a Cisco MCS 7835 or Cisco MCS 7845

All versions of the Cisco MCS 7835 and the Cisco MCS 7845 support up to six Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) hot-plug hard-disk drives (or five hot-plug hard-disk drives and one hot-plug tape drive) that are configured using RAID 1. These are hot-swappable SCSI drives, so you can change them without powering down the server.

Procedure

Remove the bad hard-disk drive.

Note: You do not need to turn off the power on your system.

Insert the new hard-disk drive.

The system automatically synchronizes the new hard-disk drive with no interruption.

SMA Servers Must be Restarted in Sequence

Symptom: Users cannot attend, schedule, or log in to meetings on the secondary server on an SMA system.

Possible Cause: SMA systems have a primary and a secondary server. If you restart the primary server when the secondary server is shut down, eventually the primary server times out and stops looking for the secondary server. If the secondary server comes up, the primary server can reach it via telnet or ssh and the test connection passes; however, users still may not be able to login to the secondary server. (For example, in the event of a power failure, the secondary SMA server may come up first and the primary SMA server may come up second. In this case, you have to restart the primary server again.)

Solution: Restart the primary services.

Unsupported Key Size for SSL Connection

Symptom: When you are using an SSL connection between Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express and Microsoft Outlook, the connection cannot be established and you may see an exception in the Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express logs such as the following:

Possible Cause: An attempt is made to negotiate an SSL connection with Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express using a certificate that contains a key longer than 1024 bits.

Solution: Download unlimited strength policy files. Go to http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index_jdk5.jsp and under "other downloads", get the "Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files." Follow the instructions in the README.txt found in the downloaded package. The JRE installation used by Cisco Unified MeetingPlace Express is found at /opt/cisco/meetingplace_express/jre/.

Due to import control restrictions by the governments of a few countries, the jurisdiction policy files shipped with the JDK 5.0 from Sun Microsystems specify that "strong" but limited cryptography may be used. An "unlimited strength" version of these files indicating no restrictions on cryptographic strengths is available for those living in eligible countries (which is most countries). But only the "strong" version can be imported into those countries whose governments mandate restrictions. The JCE framework will enforce the restrictions specified in the installed jurisdiction policy files.